Hello Battlerite people! It is me, Christian, here with another Dev Blog for you all. Today we are returning to that age old segment where we talk about what’s been going on at the Stunlock Headquarters last week.
Friday Update
Some of you may have noticed a small update rolling out last Friday. With it we fixed the issue with Odeum replay editing not working correctly. We also updated the Season information, as we have decided to extend Season 4 until late September. Like I mentioned last week we are planning some updates to the ranking system for that patch, and we don’t want these changes to roll out mid season. They are however changes we need to test before the launch of F2P, so rather than having a one month season from late August to late September, we chose to extend Season 4 instead. Apologies for this not being clearly communicated; there was some miscommunication at the office which made the update roll out without an accompanying post.
Community Team
Okay, I realize you guys don’t necessarily find updates in the community team to be the most exciting news. However, as it is relevant to you guys I still want to bring something up here. So, just last week Liz’s Swedish work permit was approved, which means that she should be able to get over here and start working at the office in about a month or so. As such, we’ll be escalating the handover process which means you’ll gradually be seeing a lot more of her and less of me, starting, well, this week basically. I will still be around (and most likely keep writing another few of these posts) and I will try to interact with you guys every now and then but as my focus switches to gameplay, the frequency will naturally slow down.
Gameplay Team
There’s been a few cool things going on in the gameplay team this recent week, but I don’t have a lot of detailed information to give. Both because some of the details haven’t been sorted out at this time of writing, but also because some of the things we are working on warrant bigger reveals than this week’s blog. Suffice to say, work has continued in the Champion development department with new Champions, at different stages of completion, being worked on and refined. We’ll talk more about them further down the line.
More game mode testing and iteration has been going on as well, with us trying out some different (rough) concepts. As it is looking right now we will most likely be replacing Rocket Balloon Brawl with a new Brawl in the late August patch. You’ll get more details in the patch notes, but I will say that the new Brawl will be something closer to how the regular Arena works than Rocket Balloon and will still have some distinctive differences. Hope you’re looking forward to it!
Finally, for the August patch, we will be doing some balance and champion updates as previously mentioned. Just like above, you’ll get full details about this in the eventual patch notes but I can give some general information. The champions we’ve primarily been looking at are Bakko, Blossom, Ezmo, Jade, Poloma, Raigon, Rook, Ruh Kaan, Shifu, and Varesh. Among them Blossom, Jade, Ruh Kaan, Shifu, and Varesh will probably receive some closer attention.
UI 2.0
We’re not going to dwell too much on this but I figured we can show you guys one of the tests going on right now. At the moment they are trying to establish the overall color scheme the UI will follow in certain scenes.
The ability browser hasn’t changed much since you last saw it but is not necessarily in its final state just yet. Here they are focusing on trying to nail down the the shades of color used, along with trying out textures for the top bar. It’s looking like it will have some sort of stone texture right now, but we’ll see where they end up. The goal is for some more detailed art styling for the top bar to be decided this week.
Art Team
Besides work also going on with some of the upcoming champions, the art team has been focusing on creating a lot of new cosmetics. The plan is for the eventual Free-To-Play patch to contain a lot of things, so besides creating cosmetics for the patches I mentioned last week, there’s already content being created specifically with the F2P patch in mind. As you might suspect there’s a lot of things here you’ll have to wait for before you can see it.
With the reveal of the Lucie’s updated character model last Friday, I can also confirm here that the champions currently lacking a model update will all get theirs with the coming August patch. I’m even able to show you guys a new one! Take a look at the new Pestilus:
Closing Words
And that’s all I had for you this week. Stay tuned for more champion model update reveals and patch notes!
Oh and one more thing. We’re actually preparing to send out another wave of Battlerite Lite keys in the coming weeks, so if you’re not signed up for the newsletter, make sure to do so ASAP to be certain!
Thanks for reading!
/Christian